Sith Sigma

How many sick days should a healthy employee need? February 27, 2008

2 per year. The flu only hits once a year – and worst case you’ll get hit with a fever, the peak of which lasts for only a day.

Parents however will have kids who get sick all the time, and use up sicks day for that.

So what is sick enough? Well a 102F fever or more is. Anything else, the employee can work at home if they need to. Otherwise coughing, upset stomachs, back pain, and all that… please, get back to work.

That’s why the Sith believe in the PTO system. You get a lump sum # of days, use it however you want. Otherwise allocated sick time gets abused.

Should you manage your employees’ career? January 20, 2008

Everyone knows the adage that “if you aren’t promoted in 2 years, you should find another position”. They also say the fastest way to gain salary increases and titles, is to change companies every 2 years. This of course applies to the employees who are highly motivated and have career goals. Not all employees are like this, many are quite happy to stay in the same position for decades.

The situation:

• You’re a highly motivated professional and have been excelling in you position. You are a superstar.
• You haven’t been prompted in 2 years and the company is content with you in your current position.
• You’ve received small inflation based pay raises.
• You don’t see a career path/room to be promoted in the current department/organization.
• Your next job may be your manager’s position.

In this situation, if you’re itching for a large pay increase, direct reports or that “Senior” moniker in your title, what choice do you have? If you discuss it with your manager, you may just confirm what you already know, that there isn’t a new viable position available for you. It will also create an uncomfortable atmosphere at work, if your manager thinks your looking for a new position and will be leaving soon. On the flip side, your manager may value you, and work to give you what you want.

Now that the foundation is set, how should you as a manager handle this situation? Should you care to actively be concerned about your superstars leaving? How do you answer these questions?

• Who is a superstar and highly valued?
• Which superstars are highly motivated to move-up?
• What if your organization doesn’t have available positions?
• Do you consider your superstars as numbers, and do not concern yourself with their careers, but just with what they can do for you today?

There are 2 schools of thought on this: Have a visible career progression path for all positions. In this case, the company is active in managing career paths and retaining superstars. The other option is no policy/action from management and let the chips fall where they may. In a large and profitable company, managing careers is possible, in a smaller company; it’s very difficult. Concrete solutions? I encourage discussion on this topic.

Motivating Technical Employees November 20, 2007

Technical staff are an odd bunch; their mentality, view on life, and history are uniquely different than most other career people. One of the major differences is that technical people are into technology because they love it, and many have been doing it all their life – being able to get paid to do is just a huge bonus (though getting them to link that desire to focus on projects related to the goals of the business can be a challenge).

Similarly with the Sith, from a very young age sithlings discover the nature of the force and take an interest in it throughout their whole life.

Versus other careers like accountants, and storm troopers. No one at 10 years old is doing accounting or storm trooping. You can pretend maybe, but technical staff and the Sith are doing it FOR REAL at early ages.

Although the Empire is hailed for its ability wield great powers with the dark side of the force, we’re mostly successful as a result of our technical staff who create and support our EMS (Empire Management System) using technologies like Adobe Flex (currently version 982), and Coldfusion (version 1021).

So what motivates programmers, network engineers, and the like? Here’s a few that we’ve found that work, but would like to hear your thoughts as well.

• Free Sith Cola, Mountain Sith, Empire Bull, Empire Star, and other caffeinated drinks.
• Free Coffee.
• Free snacks. The unhealthier the better apparently (donuts, cupcakes, cookies, chocolate, trail mix, space mix, etc…).
• Free food (e.g. Pizza Fridays).
• Support for their personal initiatives (efforts with user groups, blogs, etc…).
• Gift cards for Sithbucks.
• Public recognition (awards, certificates, trophies, etc…).
• Sending them to conferences.
• Exclusivity of technical stuff. E.g. rewarding best performing tech staff with bigger monitors, more monitors, latest versions of software, etc… Visible stuff that makes them feel superior to others.
• Financial rewards (stock options, bonuses). However long term things like 401K matching are viewed as good, they have little impact on motivation.

Employees Abusing Sick Days November 4, 2007

Studies have shown that when a company offers paid sick days, employees will use 85% of the sick days, regardless of how many are offered. Following that trend, you may have noticed a strange virus that only inflicts your staff on Fridays or Mondays. Common sense dictates that if your company offers a “use it or lose it” policy, chances are employees are going to use them.

Many companies keep vacation & sick days separate, with the argument that if they were combined, you’d have to pay for all the days, vs. sick days that hopefully won’t be completely used by everyone in the company. Many other companies are going the other route by combining vacation and sick days into 1 PTO pool. The PTO pool doesn’t have to equal vacation time + the sick days your currently offering, but a happy medium based on actual usage perhaps. Regardless of the #, since it will be less than the previous total pool, you can expect some grumbling amongst the ranks.

The Sith feel the benefits are well worth it:

1. Employees will no longer have to lie to their manager about their Friday flu.
2. Other employees who are working hard won’t feel resentment to the employees that abuse sick days.
3. Productivity will be much more predictable and organized as PTO time will be planned vs. employees scrambling to use up sick time during key times.
4. Your employees health will miraculously improve.

11/12/07: As a follow-up CNN.com coincidentally has a non-scientific poll asking users if they’ve abused sick time. and 60% are saying they do. THAT’s SAD! And the type people who would even read CNN are probably more affluent/progressive types of folks (vs the general population).

Performance Review Tip October 25, 2007

When giving a performance review there may be times when weaknesses, poor scores or other negative feedback has to be discussed.  When these situations come up, keep them at a high level, and just expect the employee to listen.  Do not have expectations of solving them in the initial sitting.  Schedule a follow-up meeting 2 weeks from the original review where the negative feedback can be more openly discussed and a plan can be formulated to deal with it.

Why time is needed:  when an employee hears negative feedback, they may become defensive for obvious reasons.  Most people need time to let the negative feedback sink in.  They need to allow their emotions to go from surprise/defensiveness to serious thought and then acceptance. Time, thought, discussions and peer-feedback will help a person cope with the negative feedback   After time has passed they will be more willing to accept the negative feedback and see it as an opportunity to grow.  Hopefully by the 2nd meeting they will prepare their own plan to address the issues.